No detail too small for summit optics

They wanted the six-hour talks to take place around a table with House and Senate members sitting at the same height as President Barack Obama, according to a senior Senate GOP aide.

“We don’t want any more of that Professor Obama lecturing to us stuff,” said one staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity. Another aide circulated pictures of Obama speaking at various events using his favorite platform, an elevated lectern perched above an audience of upraised, adoring faces.

Republicans got their wish. “Participants will be seated at tables in a hollow square setup. They’ll be identified with name cards,” reads the White House summit schedule.

The issue might seem petty, but it illuminates just how seriously Hill Republicans regard every detail of the high-stakes meeting — which comes weeks after Obama embarrassed the House GOP Conference during a one-sided question-and-answer session at the party’s annual retreat in Baltimore.

The official objective of Thursday’s health care summit at Blair House is to air a frank, public exchange of ideas that could lead to a thus-far elusive bipartisan compromise demanded by the American people.

The Democrats’ unstated goal, of course, is to make congressional Republicans look like a bunch of whiny, cynical, ideologically bankrupt crybabies who don’t have a plan of their own.

A good performance by Obama, contrasting his $950 billion reform plan with the GOP’s scaled-back measures, could give the renewed effort to jump-start the process real momentum, shift public opinion and buck up Democrats eager to get past an issue that has endangered the party’s midterm prospects.

Optics, therefore, are everything.

Staffers for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his House counterpart, John Boehner, have insisted on subtle but significant changes in the format proposed by the White House, which has been represented by seasoned negotiator Phil Schiliro, Obama’s assistant for legislative affairs.

Many of the details have been worked out to a precision usually reserved for summits among global leaders or presidential debates.

For one thing, that table will be a big one. McConnell, irked by plans to limit seating to only core participants, secured a pledge to seat all House members and senators at the grownups’ table.

According to the White House, Obama will offer opening comments, followed by Republican and Democratic members chosen by their colleagues. The discussions will center on four themes: controlling costs and expanding coverage, both introduced by the president; insurance reforms, introduced by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; and reducing the deficit, introduced by Vice President Joe Biden.